


Pretense (The Lunchtime Remix)

by orphan_account



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Food, Gen, Nobody Headcanons, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 02:03:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20024752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: They all have their own tastes. Their own way, to pretend.





	Pretense (The Lunchtime Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pettycoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettycoat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Lunchtime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4076500) by [pettycoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettycoat/pseuds/pettycoat). 



They all have their own tastes. Their own way, to pretend.

A Nobody is a shell of a being, the body of someone who has died, but with a fervour for life remaining within. They don’t quite follow the rules that other beings have to; they’re stuck, in between death and life, half holding on and half wanting to let go. Pretending to be alive.

None of them need to eat food. Xemnas doesn’t; he is the eldest of all of them, and his existence is the mostly loosely defined. He sits, and he watches, and he waits, and he does need to pretend along with the rest of them.

Xigbar likes to pretend, but only when he has the opportunity to annoy someone else. Then he will tilt his head and claim superiority, ordering them to hand over the food. Then he will dig in with gusto, and loudly proclaim how good it was. It doesn’t win him any favours.

Xaldin will drink soup, and pretend that he doesn’t do it because it reminds him of what came before. His heart has stilled, but the pleasant memories remain. He has discovered that there’s a way to stimulate feelings through memories, with touch and taste and sound. He eats, and pretends, and fools none of them.

Even before his heart was ripped from him, Vexen often lost himself in his experiments for hours and days without the need for food. Besides Xemnas, he is the least likely to eat anything. When he does consume something it’s more habit than anything else – a quick trip to the kitchen in the middle of the night, mind still puzzling over whatever he is trying to discover, body working through the motions that it still remembers. When he comes to his senses halfway through a meal, often enough Vexen will simply abandon it where it lies. He favours time over pretend.

Lexaeus pretends that it does not bother him that they do not need to eat. He will decline food if offered, but will sneak back to where it is stored later, consuming it and wishing that he could taste it. He stashes his protein shakes in the fridge, because he knows that habit will keep the others from taking them – just as habit keeps him coming back to them.

Zexion can hardly remember what food used to taste like. He was eight when he died, and trauma has locked most of those memories away. Now he eats, and pretends that he knows what the food he consumes tastes like.

Axel eats only ice cream, and sleeps as much as he is able. When he has the ice cream, he can almost pretend that everything is as it was – when he isn’t sitting upon the clock tower, he has no luxury for those types of thoughts.

Saïx only eats when it is most convenient for him – when it allows him to be present at the table when otherwise he would have no excuse to be there. The others tolerate it, because telling him otherwise would mean that they are admitting that they don’t want his presence. Saïx aggravates them by eating plants in front of Marluxia, drinking protein shakes made by someone else, and keeping his face still throughout it all. He is pretending, performing for them all, but himself most of all.

Demyx pretends loudly, crashing through the kitchen with a zest for life that’s just as fake as the rest of them. He’s flashy and rough and sends things crashing, plates and cutlery and empty containers, as if the noise will cover up the empty hole he’s hiding.

Luxord gambles on his food, as he does with everything else. It’s all a game to him, chances rolling out of his reach, hinging on such a close roll of possibilities that he can’t see beyond them. It’s freeing, to not know the future. To pretend for a second that he does not possess abilities that normal humans do not have.

Marluxia feels the crunch of every plant consumed within the castle. He removes any food he finds that contains any plant matter, and resists the urge to eat his steak raw. This does not control him, damn it. He will not let it control him, and pretends that he now only eats meat because he chooses to.

Larxene doesn’t eat. She pushes, pushes it away, just like everything else that connects her with her past. She doesn’t want to remember it. She doesn’t want to act like she’s human anymore. She _isn’t_ and she’s certain that eating would only make her barf, anyway. Why would she force herself to act like everything is like it was, before her heart got ripped out of her chest? She doesn’t eat, and pretends that she doesn’t want to.

Roxas doesn’t know that humans need to eat food to continue living. He takes the ice cream that Axel offers and needs to be shown how to eat it – this, like everything else, he doesn’t remember. Axel can only watch him gingerly lick at the melting bar and think about how he’s teaching him to pretend, alongside the rest of them.

Xion remembers more than Roxas, but only barely. Her motions are more like half remembered habits, and she eats her first ice cream without having to be told how. Unlike Roxas, she knows that they don’t have to eat, and that they’re all pretending – her perhaps even more than the rest of them. But it’s easy, too easy, to fall into a pattern that Axel finds comforting, and that Roxas doesn’t know is wrong.

It’s easy for all of them – that’s why they’re pretending. It’s easier to pretend than to admit as to how changed they all really are. Xemnas claims that they can get their hearts back, but none of them are quite sure he’s telling them the truth. And even if he is – they are changed by their experiences, irrevocably, just like losing their hearts in the first place changed them. They will remember how food tasted like ash in their mouths, heavy and unfulfilling.

But they pretend that they don’t care, anyway.


End file.
